Upgrading from MySQL 5.5 to MariaDB 5.7 (a fork of the project by the founder).

Slightly less $ per month for overall better performance and new tech stack.

Upgrading our web stack will be much easier in the new setup.

Our old web stack was quite fragile, to the point where the techs didn't want to touch it to do a simple upgrade like moving a point version in PHP. So I decided back in August to do a full migration. After a few fits and starts, I sat down to set it up in earnest yesterday. Turns out I've gotten a little faster at this process over the years so I expect we'll be moving as soon as I finish doing a dry run with the databases today.

Upgrading from %$&^@! 5 to 7. the first number is smaller than the second

Upgrading from &#$ 2.2 to 2.4.

Upgrading from &^& 5.4 to 5.6 (big performance gains).

Upgrading from ^#$( 5.5 to %(@# 5.7 (a fork of the project by the founder).

Slightly less $ per month for overall better performance and new tech stack.

Upgrading our web stack will be much easier in the new setup.

Our old web stack was quite fragile, to the point where the techs didn't want to touch it to do a simple upgrade like moving a point version in PHP. So I decided back in August to do a full migration. After a few fits and starts, I sat down to set it up in earnest yesterday. Turns out I've gotten a little faster at this process over the years so I expect we'll be moving as soon as I finish doing a dry run with the databases today.

Bit of Icrontic lore / Linux nerdery: Back in the days of bart, our first server, the websites had to be served from a secondary hard drive. I think our system drive was super fast for the time, but super small, and Icrontic was quite large for contemporary hosting standards. So we mounted a (5400rpm?) drive as /storage and that was where our webroot (and databases, and logs) were put. And then I just... left it that way. A bit of paranoia about breaking something obscure, and a bit of laziness. 4 servers later, I've finally moved the webroot under /srv and left the databases and logs where they go by default like a grownup sysadmin.

@Linc, it's nice to do things right, but no one will blame you for operating for a time under the "if it ain't broke" phiosophy. Most systems that have been around for a few hardware, os, and software changes will show some "historical" configuration. Good job getting it all done and thanks for keeping the site working well.

@Linc said:
Bit of Icrontic lore / Linux nerdery: Back in the days of bart, our first server, the websites had to be served from a secondary hard drive. I think our system drive was super fast for the time, but super small, and Icrontic was quite large for contemporary hosting standards. So we mounted a (5400rpm?) drive as /storage and that was where our webroot (and databases, and logs) were put. And then I just... left it that way. A bit of paranoia about breaking something obscure, and a bit of laziness. 4 servers later, I've finally moved the webroot under /srv and left the databases and logs where they go by default like a grownup sysadmin.